Using Magic
For a person's ability to perform magic to be of use, much training is needed. When "wild", typically with young and untrained children, magic will still manifest itself subconsciously in moments of strong apprehension, fear or anger. For example, Harry Potter once made his hair grow back after a bad haircut; set a boa constrictor on his cousin Dudley at the London Zoo; and, in anger, made his Aunt Marge inflate enormously. While this reaction is usually uncontrollable, Tom Marvolo Riddle, later known as Lord Voldemort, was able to "make things move without touching them...make animals do what he wanted without training them...make bad things happen to people who annoy him...or 'make them hurt if I want to'" when he was a young child, apparently intentionally. In addition, Lily Potter was able to guide and control the blades of a flower by wanting to. Almost all magic is done with the use of a supporting tool or focus, typically a wand. On the subject of magic without the use of a wand, Rowling says:
| “ | You can do unfocused and uncontrolled magic without a wand (for instance when Harry blows up Aunt Marge) but to do really good spells, yes, you need a wand. | ” |
Mark Williams, who played Arthur Weasley in the films, commented in the special 50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments, "If only I had a wand, and I could KILL people!"
A wizard or witch is only at their best when using their own wand. Throughout the series, it is evident that when using another's wand, one's spells are not as strong as they normally would be. Ownership of a wand can transfer from one person to another if the original owner of the wand is forcibly disarmed (either magically or manually, as evident from Draco Malfoy's magical disarming of Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince and Harry's manual disarming of Draco in Deathly Hallows). Moreover, if a person has the allegiance of more than one wand, and one of them is forcibly taken away, the other wands that respond to this person will also change their allegiance (Harry's taking Draco's hawthorn wand in Malfoy Manor in Deathly Hallows, leads to the Elder Wand also accepting Harry as its master: "Does the wand in your hand know that its last master was disarmed? Because if it does ... I am the true master of the Elder Wand.")
Within the books, technical details of magic are obscure. Of Harry's lessons, only those involving magical creatures, potions or divination are given in any detail.
Severus Snape once told Harry Potter that "Time and space matter in magic ..." during Harry's first Occlumency lesson in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Albus Dumbledore told Harry after finding the magically concealed boat to reach the locket Horcrux that "Magic always leaves traces, sometimes very distinctive traces."
Read more about this topic: Magic In Harry Potter
Famous quotes containing the word magic:
“The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)